Remember when I wrote about the Great Hollywood Sign Wars, then spoke about it as part of architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne’s Third LA project? Now you can see me talking about the battle to keep the Hollywood Sign hidden on a special Third LA episode of Artbound, airing on KCET all month—or you can watch the entire thing here.

Thanks to Christopher for asking me to be part of it, and shout out to my dear friend Carolina Miranda who hosts the show this season!

Next month I’m honored to help launch Mayor Eric Garcetti’s new Make it in LA initiative focused on supporting LA’s manufacturers. I’ll be moderating a panel with some incredible local makers on Tuesday, June 21 as part of the LA Design Festival, but if you can’t make that one, sign up here to get invitations to future events and tours.

As part of the new movement, show us how you #makeitinla, like these Zuzii shoes on my feet that were made a few blocks away from where I took this photo!

I am so excited to be headed to one of my favorite places on Earth later this month to see what some of my favorite people have put together. In my mind, Portland will forever be the great urban laboratory of the US—from food carts to bike infrastructure to maker culture—and luckily there’s now a fantastic annual event celebrating it all. Design Week Portland takes place April 15 through 23.

I’ll be speaking on the main stage on Friday, April 15, introducing the great Ethan Seltzer, who will be talking about the ever-developing “brand” of Portland. And I’ll be providing my own little snippet of commentary on how we can shape our cities into the places we want them to be. A few more people I can’t wait to see speak: Andy Pressman, Craig Dykers, and my estranged second cousin by marriage thrice removed, Rob Walker.

Tickets are still available and give you access to a whole week of cool activities throughout the city, so come be a part of it! I’ll see you there!

My dear friends at Design Observer are coming to LA, ostensibly to escape the frigid late winter on the East Coast, but also to throw a conference called Taste on Friday, February 12. I’m excited to be a part of it and I’ll be interviewing one of my heroes: Sqirl proprietor Jessica Koslow, who has captivated the city—and I’d argue the world—with her transcendent take on locally sourced, irresistibly plated fuel for Angelenos. But she’s also an incredible thinker when it comes to issues of food justice, sustainability, design, and urbanism. If you’ve eaten her food—or favorited any of her impeccably photographed dishes on Instagram—you know why she was absolutely the first person I thought of when confronted with the idea of a conference about food and visual culture.

The entire day of programming looks absolutely delicious—Mark Bittman, Ron Finley, Evan Kleiman, Frances Anderton, and DO founders Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand, among many, many others—and I’m just as excited to be in the audience as I am to be onstage. The whole thing takes place on February 12 at the Los Angeles Theater Center in DTLA. Tickets are available and I do have some discounted passes if you want to email me for the code. Hope to see you there!

One year ends in a blur of big changes with lots of new adventures lined up for the next. Including renovating this beautiful 103-year-old Craftsman that someone decided that we might be fit to own (still not 100% sure how that happened). Hope you’re enjoying everything the season has to offer.

Every once in awhile something I write makes its way into a book, which is sometimes (not always!) printed on actual pieces of paper. Here are the latest opportunities for you to read those words, both of which are also lovely compendiums of inspiring design work.

Last year I was honored to be interviewed by the great Cesar Contreras for his web series Pencil vs Pixel. Cesar has interviewed dozens (and dozens and dozens) of folks from every edge of the creative universe over the years. What makes his interviews so great is not only the diversity of these voices but also how they all provide real-world advice on how they do what they do. Now you can get a book that includes the most salient bits of those conversations, including some tips from me about reinvention which I dole out alongside my own reinvention hero, Aaron Draplin. You can get the book for free by signing up for the Pencil vs Pixel email. Thanks to Cesar for including me!

Over a decade ago I started writing for a magazine which would come to change the course of my writing career, and also managed the way people thought about magazines. That publication was GOOD, of course, and its designer was Scott Stowell, and it’s probably not surprising to learn that Scott and his firm Open ended up transforming their corner of the design world as well.

Scott and I ended up becoming great friends who ended up bonding over our insatiable need to explore and explain cities on foot, and this book is a lot like taking a long walk with Scott: It’s filled with very witty, insightful commentary on 12 of Open’s projects, all of which managed to make the world just a little bit better. I wrote a little essay which appears alongside the writing of Open’s clients and friends like Karrie Jacobs, Maira Kalman, and more. (I might mention my great friend Chappell Ellison also edited the book.) You may have already helped fund the book, so if so, thank you! If not, you should get this book for a designer in your life. Buy it here!

I was surprised and a little shocked when Carlo Caccavale called me a few months ago to let me know that I had won the Design Advocate award from the LA chapter of the American Institute of Architects. I was so honored to receive the award at the annual ceremony last week alongside so many good friends and longtime heroes. But I kept thinking, if only they had seen me when I arrived here in LA 14 years ago—no one in that audience would have recognized me.

In 2001 I was looking for a job in advertising. I drove everywhere. I had a blog named after ice cream. Most of what I knew about LA was gleaned from episodes of 90210. I didn’t know anything about architecture, except that I loved it.

They certainly didn’t have to, but this community of architects embraced me completely. They invited me into their homes and offices, and inspired me with their work, and trusted me with their stories. And I cannot be more grateful to any group of individuals for teaching me everything I knew about this great city.

I didn’t get to say any thank yous on stage but I do want to thank a few people. I have been lucky to work with such great editors but I want to say thanks very specifically to my dear friend and mentor Frances Anderton, who gave me my big break at KCRW after barely meeting me. Frances taught me how to report a story for a wider audience, and that anything can have a design angle, which is totally true. And she also helped give me guidance on balancing writing and family as I converted myself from a workaholic to a working mom.

A big thank you to that family of mine, who have completely changed the way I see LA. And to my cohorts at de LaB, Los Angeles Walks, and Gizmodo who sure do make exploring LA a whole lot of fun. And to all my fellow LA writers and critics who work tirelessly to combat all the stereotypes spewing forth from the New York Times.

It was pretty amazing to take the stage after my fellow honorees, who are all my urbanism heroes—Aaron Paley, Dana Cuff, Steven Ehrlich, Sarah Lorenzen—but I was most excited about this year’s prestigious 25 Year Award, which went to the design for the 1984 Summer Olympics, probably my favorite LA story I’ve ever written. I really wish that Deborah Sussman would have been there to see not only her colorful work celebrated but also her deep love of Los Angeles. Deborah taught me it’s not enough to show your civic pride by designing the Olympics, you must dress like those Olympics every day for the rest of your life. I’ve tried to follow in her footsteps!

And there’s one other person who I wish could have been there (and come to think about it, he dressed a lot like the 1984 Olympics, too). My dear friend John Chase, who I think about every day when I’m walking around the city. It was John who nudged me to take advantage of my “brand” and change my name from Gelatobaby to A Walker in LA. What? You’re still doing the ice cream thing? John also taught me maybe the most important thing in my writing: That living in cities is personal, and that’s why writing about those cities also has to be personal—that’s how we make change.

So thanks to every single one of the designers and architects out there who are making personal work that makes a difference—and making LA the most exciting city to write about on the planet.

And although I have changed a lot since I was “Gelatobaby,” I haven’t changed that much. Of course I still celebrated my award with ice cream.

It’s been quiet here. A little TOO quiet. And that means I’ve got some explaining to do.

As you know my life has changed quite a bit since I started a gelato-themed repository for my thoughts. I got married, and I changed my name—not my real name, silly, the name of this blog—and, most importantly, I had a kid. The honest truth is that I fully believed I could hold down two full-time jobs (one being motherhood) while keeping all my fun side work going, too. What I quickly realized is that once I close my computer for the day, the last thing I want to do is write more at night or on the weekends. All I want to do is hang with my gal. Besides a handful of speaking engagements I’ll accept each year, and my nonprofit work for design east of La Brea and Los Angeles Walks, my side projects have been, well, sidelined. Including this blog that I love to write so much.

Another honest truth is that it’s been almost two years since I took a job as the Urbanism Editor at Gizmodo, where I’ve been able to write about pretty much everything I used to write about on this blog, and for a much bigger audience. So essentially I’ve been writing all my AWalkerinLA.com stories over at Gizmodo.com. You can see all the stories I’ve written in the last two years.

But I miss writing this blog. As much as I love filing topical updates on Twitter and Instagram, I am very committed to the idea of having a Little Place on the Internet, especially in an age when so many writers are surrendering their homesteads. So I’ve made a plan to revitalize this site, and hopefully provide even more value to you, dear readers.

At the urging of several folks I trust better than myself to know what’s good for me, I’m going to launch a newsletter. The newsletter will contain at least four of the following things: Photos I took while walking, favorite stories written by me, favorite stories not written by me, events that I think are worth attending, and important things to know about LA. In addition to delivering an email to your inbox, the content of the newsletter will also be published here, as a way to keep my love for walking and LA all in one place. It’s not a perfect solution—but it’s something that’s different which I’m excited to do.

So, if you want in: Sign up here. Otherwise, just keep reading here as you have before. And if you have any thoughts about what you’d like in a newsletter—or a revitalized blog!—please let me know.

Thanks again for reading, wherever you might find my words—it means the world to me.

Finally emerging from the whole keeping-a-newborn-alive grace period and back in action, both behind the keyboard and on the sidewalks. More adventures soon, but couldn’t wait to share our latest work of art.

Read my articles elsewhere

I regularly write about design, architecture, cities, transportation and walking for several publications. You can read my latest and greatest stories below, or clicking on the publication will take you to all my articles for that publication. You can also read my favorite stories from 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010.

View my photos

Check out our next de LaB

Design East of La Brea is a monthly design event I co-host with Haily Zaki, Marissa Gluck and Erin Cullerton. Almost always east of La Brea. Learn more about past de Labs and sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Walk this way

Los Angeles Walks is a new pedestrian advocacy organization that's focused on making walking safe, accessible and fun for all Angelenos. Sign up for our mailing list and join us at an upcoming event to share your ideas or take a walk with us.

Climb some stairs

Join me and some of LA's most interesting people for The Big Parade, an annual 40-mile walk through Los Angeles over the city's many public stairways. Read about this year's walk, or come along for a practice walk (sometimes hosted by me), which take place throughout the year.

Listen to DnA: Design and Architecture

Tune in to DnA: Design & Architecture, the KCRW show hosted by Frances Anderton on the third Tuesday of every month, where I'm an associate producer. For local design events, check out the DnA calendar.

Bring GOOD Ideas for Cities to your city or school

An initiative funded in part by ArtPlace, GOOD Ideas for Cities asks creatives to create solutions to urban problems proposed by city leaders, and present the results at lively public forums. Read more about this program I co-founded with GOOD's Casey Caplowe and how you can get involved.